


The Hatter's Choice

by HisagiJ69



Category: Are You Alice?
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 02:07:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3592278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisagiJ69/pseuds/HisagiJ69
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a scene that came up to my mind between Alice and Hatter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hatter's Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo... the summary is pretty vague because I myself am not sure of what this is. It came to me one day and I decided to try writting some dramatic scene between these two :) That because I am in love with "Are you Alice?" manga and I think it needs more fans and specially this ship (HatterXAlice) that is officially in my OTP list ^_^

The Hatter ran as fast as he could, his footsteps loudly hitting the pavement, his breath coming out in harsh and short gasps, his heart throbbing inside his ribcage. Still none of those sounds loud enough to overcome the pouring rain that soaked him to the bone, making his clothes heavy over his body, his skin cold in spite of the movement, his vision blurry. He had to be quick, or else…

            He stopped on his heels when he saw him. The rain kept falling, as if mocking them, like a sinister soundtrack to frame the moment. The Hatter stared in awe at the back of the boy standing in front of him, his shoulders down and members trembling. Pending in his hand, his black gun seemed lifeless.

            “Alice…” The Hatter succeeded to murmur though practically inaudible through the rain.

            Alice must have heard, or else felt his presence standing behind him, because he slowly turned around. When his blue eyes met the Hatter’s, there was nothing in them but a mix of incredulity, shame and terror. The white tuxedo he wore, besides soaked in the rain’s water, was splattered of dark red, and so was his cheek. The shady corpse laying at the boy’s feet was still and bloody. The Hatter gulped and his breath got stuck in his throat. He was too late.

            “I-… I…” Alice stuttered, shocked and scared, staring down at his hand. His members started to shake violently as he saw the gun, loosely held by his bloody hand. “I-… I…” His voice was shaking as well, and the Hatter could see a sudden panic growing in his expression. “I…” Was all Alice managed to say in the end, before feeling his legs far too weak to keep standing, and fell down on his knees, like if his upper body was dead weight and nothing more. The gun also got free from his feeble fingers, hitting the floor with a deaf thump.

            The sound echoed during a long minute in the Hatter’s ears, before he was able to speak. He also seemed not to find words fitting the situation. “Alice…” Was all that came out.

            “I--… I can’t!” Exclaimed Alice, too lowly for it to be considered a scream, his voice shaky, as if holding back tears he couldn’t shed. “It’s… What is… this?!” He asked, visibly confused and lost, gripping his jacket, hand right over his chest. His face looked down as his other hand hit the pavement, wet of rain and blood. “What am I, god damn it! I… I can’t do this anymore! This is… not me… I… I don’t even know who I am…”

            Those last words seemed to give the Hater some of the courage he was looking for. When he talked, his voice was firm. “You are Alice. And you know that.”

            This time, the blond boy answered with a twisted chuckle, somehow lost between amusement and pain. “I am not Alice… I never was… And _you_ know that! All of this time, we both knew it… But I tried to convince myself it was true… That I was Alice and that it was my role to fulfil because I felt desperate! I was… I am… so scared…” His face looked up at the Hatter, and those hurting blue eyes made the man want to step back. He didn’t. “I am so scared of not knowing who I am! Being Alice would give me a reason to fight… to exist.” He rushed is hands to cover his face in shame. “Well, I am not Alice! And so what am I supposed to do?! Ah?! What am I supposed to do?!” He cried out, this time loud enough to cut the rain’s humming.

            The Hatter felt his chest tightened and clench his fists. He had no idea how to answer, because he also was not sure of anything. He had never been, and since this Alice came, everything had turned more and more confuse for him. That feeling made him mad and made him want to run away. He walked forward, determined, and reached for Alice, grabbing his arm with unkind strength and pulling his limp body up. The boy let himself be pulled, eyes wide opened in surprise, arm hurting under that man’s grip. “Let’s go.”

            He didn’t. Alice struggled against his hold and violently shoved him away, stumbling back in still weak posture. “Get off me!” He screamed, expression of disgust or pain or sadness. Or maybe much more than that.

            The Hatter could feel his head growing hotter, his muscles getting tenser as his calm pose menaced to be wiped off by a burning anger. “Don’t be stupid. We shall go now.”

            “I don’t want to!” The other stated. “I don’t want to go with you! I don’t want to keep chasing this twisted logic you call reality! I am… tired! I am tired of trying to be something I am not! Something I will never be!”

            Clenched teeth, the Hatter couldn’t hold his rage any longer. In a quick and ferocious movement, he stepped towards Alice and held his collar, pulling it harshly enough to make Alice gasp. Their faces too close, the Hatter cried in his face everything he was holding back. “Stop blabbering bullshit, you piece of crap! It is not a matter of wanting or not wanting! This is how things are. As long as you live, you are Alice, like it or not. So stop acting like a spoiled brat and get a hold of yourself immediately. There is no way I will let you ruin my plans!”

            Alice stood in silence for a second, wet golden locks covering his eyes as his head stood low, hands over the Hatter’s in an instinctive and ineffective attempt to loosen his grip. The next moment, a muffled sound was heard by the Hatter, but he couldn’t quite understand what it was. Alice’s lips slowly curved into a sick smile, and as the sound got louder, the Hatter realized the boy was giggling. It quickly became a loud laugh, not pure nor simple nor happy. It was a laugh carrying sorrow and pain and unbelief, as much as understanding and defeat.

“That’s what it was always about, right, Hatter-san?” He mumbled when he stopped laughing, yet his smile stood there. “It was always about your purposes. I knew it all along and I went on, because I had nothing else to hold on to but this stupid name and this stupid game and this stupid existence. But it’s over. I can’t take this anymore.”

This was, the Hatter could state, the first time he had felt like that: the burning rage swallowed by an overwhelming wave of pity and sadness, of shame and resentment. It happened the moment Alice looked up, his face wet not only by the rain now, but by thick tears that flood from his shady blue eyes. “I can’t take this name anymore!” He cried, this time awfully childish, and also awfully miserable. “But it’s okay, isn’t it?” He proceeded, with a tired tone. “It’s not me you need.”

With this, the Hatter’s grip turned loose on Alice’s collar. Something in those words had made him suddenly weaker. The blond continued, taking a step backwards, standing still close enough for the other’s hand to rest over his chest.

            Alice’s faithless words came out with a sudden fake joy that showed his words were in reality tearing his heart apart. “You need Alice. I cannot be the Alice you want. I’m… sorry.” He mumbled, feeling the Hatter’s hands under his own. “But it’s okay. You just need to find another Alice. The real Alice, the one that will help you reach your goal. It’s better like that, isn’t it? That’s what you wanted all along, right? You always hated me, anyway. You don’t need to hold back now.”

            This was the last drop. All the previous pity was suddenly outraged by that same anger he felt before, much more vivid this time. The Hatter clenched his fist again and took one second to heartlessly push Alice down, making the man fall with a dry cry of pain as his back hit the wet floor. The dark haired man moved right away and when Alice looked up, the Hatter’s black gun was already pointed at him, the man’s eyes dark and frightening, true rage and hate painted in them. The eyes of a killer. Alice had no doubt he would shot. He was actually surprised he hadn’t, yet.

            Alice sat, water dripping from his locks, but his smile, even if somehow fainter, was still there. It was an expression of acceptance, perhaps of an inescapable turn of events. “Ah… yes. For a new Alice to come, I have to disappear first. It’s alright, you can shoot. I am an anomaly since the very beginning. I hope to be lucky enough not to turn into a Regret. Well, it’ll be a risk, but I have no other way, actually. C’mon, Hatter-san. Do it.”

            But his hand was still holding the gun, his aim at Alice’s head, but his finger paralyzed over the trigger.

            “Don’t worry.” Alice proceeded. “I’m sure it’s not against the rules if I ask for it. Anyway, if I’m not Alice, any of the rules apply, right? Go on. Shoot.”

            But the Hatter still didn’t, and Alice’s fake calm started to fade. “What is it, now?!” He cried. “You’ve spent each minute since we met threatening to shoot me and now you can’t do it? I am asking you to kill me! That’ll be the last thing I’ll ask!” Eyes shut, loud yet unsure voice, Alice stretched a hand and pulled the man’s leg, more desperate than he wanted to admit. “Do it already! Shoot! ” Tears were back to his eyes, as he asked for the end of his meaningless life. “Don’t you want to find your real Alice?! You are going to get out of Wonderland with her, right?! Then you have to do it! Go on, shoot!”

            This time, the trigger was pulled. Even the rain seemed to go silent as Alice opened wide his eyes, shocked as he didn’t thought he could get. The Hatter kept his hand firm on the weapon, and the sound of the fire kept echoing in their heads for some long seconds. Right after, only the metallic sound of the bullet spinning on the pavement floor. Alice took a second to look back, at the cracked stone the bullet had hit, after passing a few centimetres aside of his head.

            Alice stared at the silver bullet in horror. Not because the Hatter didn’t aim at him, he realized, but because, the moment he heard the shot, that one moment that could’ve decided his death, he regretted. He realized, for his own shame and sadness, that he was weak. After stating his life was nothing but a lie, after affirming he didn’t want to live anymore, he still felt afraid. In the end, he noticed he didn’t want to die. Looking up at the Hatter, his eyes were more lost than before, even sadder, even more childish and pitiful. And shocked above all. Because, showing clenched teeth, the Hatter lowered his gun and stepped forward.

            There was no time for Alice to react as the dark haired man kneeled down before him, landed one hand over blond sodden hair and pulled the boy’s head against himself. Alice was still drowned by shock as his face smashed against the Hatter’s chest, finding wet fabric and hard muscle. It took a minute, or maybe two, or maybe longer, for both of them to realize what was going on. Alice couldn’t bring himself to move, but felt weirdly warm into that man’s arms, that kept him close and tight.

            And the Hatter was even more confused. He was surprised with his own action, but didn’t mean to go back. He wasn’t thinking, only feeling. Feeling his cold rage turning warmer, turning into a sad need and a warped understanding. Hearing Alice talk, see him cry and suffer like that, feeling his own anger and will to kill him made him notice some things he wasn’t able to understand or explain. But there he was, holding that hateful Alice in his embrace, on a need he couldn’t hold back. On thoughts he couldn’t deny.

            “I don’t want…” He murmured, more to himself than to the boy whose ear he whispered into. “I don’t want another Alice.”

            It had to be him. The moment he was about to shoot, the Hatter realized: he couldn’t bring himself to let go and find another. Not this time. This was the Alice he had been looking for, one he didn’t want to replace no matter what. Suddenly, doing so seemed dystopic and impossible. “I can’t let go of you that easily.”

            It was weird, and strange, and puzzling and shocking, and none of those words made sense in Alice’s head. Still they sounded soft and true, suddenly the only truth he knew in that twisted world. He didn’t think either. It was the panic and sadness and comfort and a million of other too physical emotions that were slowly drawing out his strength. He just held onto the Hatter and finally let go of all the tears he couldn’t contain anymore. He cried so loud his head hurt, his eyes burned. He weep like a little child over the Hatter’s shoulder until his forces worn out and his eyes closed in defeat.

            Hatter just stood there, just bared all of those tears as if those were his own, petting Alice’s blond locks, staring at the forsaken corpse lying on the street. It was okay, he said to himself. Despite the rain and the wind, Alice felt warm and comfortable, more than he would have ever imagined. When the crying stopped, Alice was lying unconscious in his arms, too weak to even stay awake. The normal Hatter would’ve shaken the boy until he woke up to scream at him, and that Hatter felt like doing exactly that. But something inside of him, as he pulled back the boy’s sleeping face and looked at its innocent aspect, made him smile. A crooked and so small smile, that anyone around would never notice. Yet it was there, for the Hatter’s own surprise. He stood up and held Alice in his strong arms. He was heavy and it would be a tiring way home through the rain, but the Hatter felt like having no other choice but to take care of Alice. The Alice he chose, after all.

            So he walked.


End file.
